31

In the captain’s quarters of the Stephen Hawking, Holly was adjusting the décor. It was taking a little time to get used to the transient nature of the fixtures and fittings of the room, knowing that as soon as she exited her quarters the catoms would revert to their natural resting state and melt back into the shell of the ship. A few times she had almost left the room and then quickly turned and re-entered, just to see if she could catch the room in mid-transformation, but without success; it was almost as if the room was playing with her and was determined not to let her win this game of peek-a-boo. She didn’t ask any of the rest of the crew if they too played this game with their quarters but she imagined they probably did.

The bed was comfortable and spacious, and the source of another thing that fascinated her. She knew that it was absorbed by the spaceship’s shell when she left the room, the covers being in a varying degree of disarray (depending upon whether or not Simon had spent the night) but, when it was time to sleep again, the bed emerged from the floor perfectly made. Perhaps some things were best left as a mystery.

She had separate daytime and night-time modes to her room. At night the room was empty except for the bed, closet, refreshments station, and four digital images projected onto the walls. Then, when morning came, the bed would disappear and be replaced by a desk, executive chair, two two-seater sofas, a holoprojector and a small dining-suite (which appeared and disappeared as required). The closet, refreshments station, and digital images were constants, available twenty-four hours a day.

Both Holly and Simon had promised the recruitment panel that their past relationship would not interfere with the mission and both had been genuine in making this promise. Neither had had any intention of rekindling the flames that had once burned within their hearts, but intention and desire are two different things and the adage ‘the heart wants what the heart wants’ is a truism that can be very difficult to resist. History is strewn with the corpses of relationships that should never have been, yet occurred because of the overpowering force of desire.

During the first three months of the journey, before entering the Torpor Tubes and hibernating for most of the remainder of the trip, Holly and Simon tried to temper their mutual attraction. But they were human and had no emotion inhibitors to limit them. In front of the crew, their behaviour was impeccable – nobody would have guessed that their relationship was anything other than Captain and Chief Medical Officer – but, in the few stolen nights that they were able to share, they became uncaged animals pawing at each other’s bodies, devouring one another in a sexual frenzy. Like teenagers they would ensure that there was no visible evidence of the intensity of their passion; scratch and bite marks were restricted to torsos. Sometimes members of the crew would detect a sparkle in Holly’s eyes after she and Simon had shared a secret tryst, but they never considered the real reason for the bounce in her step – they just assumed that she’d had a particularly sound night’s sleep.